The Diary Of Jeff Crows
by luxlow
Summary: This is the story of Jeff Crows, a gay teenage boy who lives with his violent homophobic father. It highlights his cinical views of himself and world.Challenging stereotypes placed on the Gay Community this is not a book  in progress  that should be missd
1. Chapter 1

Chapter one - It always seems to start in primary that you realize it

Juvenile detention is bad place to be. Living next to one is even worse. My name is Jeffrey Crows. This is the story of my life and how is fell to pieces then rebuilt itself (well I guess). I thought by writing this down, it would make this easier, but it didn't. It just showed me how shit my life got. It all started when I was nine. I remember watching Australian Idol and seeing Casey Donovan win it. I went on the internet to listen to more of music when I first saw my first porn site. It wasn't exactly what a eleven year old should see, but hey, what does an eleven year old know? That's the first time I ever realized that there was something else than liking girls. I liked boys. It was weird at first, confusing even but I learnt to accept it. I didn't tell anyone about it. I was too embarrassed. But people still figured it out. I've always had this theory that the reason why people turned gay was because of the pressure placed upon them. When I was little I believed that because everyone called me a faggot that was the reason I became one. Ark! All my thoughts are jumbled. Sorry if I confused you. Let me start over.

The date was the 28th of November. The year was 2005. Casey Donovan had just one the second season of Australian Idol. Many of the critics were bitching about how Anthony Callea should have won. I remember watching my family in the living room, yelling at the television about how the contest was rigged. I was the only person I knew that was happy that she won. That night I went to sleep happy. A few days later we ordered pizza from Pizza Hut. We ordered a family meal. Now if you know anything about mega company's you will know that they classify an average family as two adults and two children. Not my family. I have a Mum and a Dad, two older twin sisters Helen and Anna, who fought about everything and then there was me. When dinner arrived we ate the pizza then my dad gave out the four ice creams that came with family deal. He gave them to everyone else. I had nothing. None of them cared that I missed out. They only cared about themselves. Things as small as this made me cry when I was little. The social rejection aspect of life.

School was even worse. I had a target on me. I was weak for my age. I was wimpy. I hated my primary school. I had exactly two friends; Heidi and Gwen. Like me they were social rejects. One because of her weight the other because of a mental disability. We were happy some days when the other kids didn't bully us. But that was very rare. On this particular day we were discussing the controversial issue that every child in Australia was talking about. Australian Idol. Now that I look back on it, it's kind of pathetic. I better tell you name of my primary. It was Woodland Transverse Public School. Not that there was any actual woodland anywhere near the school. What a bad name choice for a school. Either that or it was trying to communicate that it was a harsh environment. That the children were like roses, hiding the thorns underneath to damage you. One boy at the school always stood out from everyone. He was called Craig. He was the biggest bully towards me and my friends ever since year three when I hit him with a stick and broke his arm. The school didn't even punish me for doing it, that's how pathetic this school was. He was scrawny with jet black hair. I was much taller than him, but he always knew how to emotionally hurt me. Teasing me about things neither of us actually understood. But that didn't stop him hurting me or me crying about it.

The particular day was my birthday. I was so happy that I was turning ten, finally hitting two digits. We were playing soccer, kicking the ball around when Craig got the ball and pegged it at me. If you don't know what pegging is, it's hitting or throwing something directly at a person to hurt them. It hit me in the side of the head. I ran off the field crying. I was so humiliated. I remember the laugher of my class as I ran towards the office. My teacher didn't follow me. She was too interested in talking to another teacher. Later that year I found out my teacher was lesbian and the other teacher was her lover. It was quite funny actually. My teacher was really fat. Like I mean enormous and the other teacher was extremely skinny. Well I guess that opposites do attract. When I got home from school, I looked in the mirror and saw the large bruise on the side of my face. In the coming days I stayed away as much as I could from my father. My father is the kind of person who doesn't stick up for his children, but rather tell them useless advice that will make the problem worse. Two days after the incident with the soccer ball, my dad finally cornered me before school. He inspected my bruise and told me to hit the kid back. So I did. When I got to school, I waited till recess then punched Craig in the face. He pushed me onto a wall and started to choke me. I grabbed his arm and tried to rip it free, digging in my uncut nails into his skin. I got a detention and a call home because I took my dad's advice. So nether the less I have never taken his advice ever again in my life. That night my dad hit me with his belt. More than once.

I knew I was different I just never realized how different. Two weeks after the fight, my mum and dad started fighting. One month later, on January 13th they got divorced. My mum left with Helen and Anna, and too this day I haven't seen them since. Dad got depressed and started drinking. I didn't know what to do. School was coming around fast, but I couldn't leave my dad this way. I knew I had to find him some help. So I rang up DOC's. DOC's is the Governments Department of Children Services. DOC's told my dad that if he didn't fix himself, they would take my away. He didn't fix himself. I was taken away from the only family I had left and put with a foster family for a few weeks. They were all kind to me, but I didn't like them. Even though I despised my father, I still loved him. When I started to give up on him, my dad came and found me and took me away from the foster family. Around 2am in the morning, the police came to our house and demanded to take me away from him. There was a large trail for my custody. My mother didn't show herself. My dad won the custody of me against the state. I have no idea how he actually did it. I think he bought out the jury and the judge but I never had any evidence, it was just a gut feeling.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter two – Welcome to the real world fuckers

I started high school in a main stream class five weeks into the first semester. Everyone else had made their friends. So naturally I was the outcast. I had no friends for my first two weeks. I went to a place called Jinjiikka High School. It was more like a jail rather than a school. It had a two meter high fence, all the doors to the outside was locked, if you were court outside a classroom you got yelled at for five minutes than got an afternoon school detention. I was in the library during recess when I saw a tall blonde boy sifting through the science books. He was in my year and was a loner because he was so smart. He became my best friend. His name was Gregory. He was a major geek. All that he needed was glasses. His teeth were crooked and pushed inwards. He had a Scottish accent, which was kind of cool I guess. I had a plain annoying voice. It got even worse when I fell out of the tree on my front lawn. I broke both my arm and nose. I never actually found out I broke it till the next year. I never told my father that I hurt my arm, so we drove out to Liverpool to see his parents, my grandparents. My Nan loved me. She would always ask if I was ok, and if I was doing well in school. I had to lie to her and say I was fine and I was doing great, when in fact I was depressed most days and failing nearly every class.

We went over my grandparents' house every Friday. I thought the only reason why my dad when to their house was because their TV was much better than ours. Friday night was football night. My dad, Nan and Pop went for the Hillside Rangers. I don't know why they did, because we lived in Jinjiikka and our team was the Jinjiikka Dragons. I hated football. I use to sit in the dining room playing by myself. If there was an ad break, my Nan would ask me if I wanted anything, then if I ever said yes which was rare, she would say "Merv, get the kid a drink". My Nan was the nicest person I knew. When I was in third grade, I went out trick or treating for the first and only time, and she made me this cape. I cherished the cape for months, then my sister Helen stole it off me and I never saw it again.

Four weeks till term one finished, I got suspended from school. It was music class and I had forgotten my sheet music. The fat blob of a teacher gave extra sheets out to the others who had forgotten them, except for me. When I asked for one she replied with "It's not my fault you forgot it!" I stood up and yelled at her. "You stupid fat bitch! Just give me a fucking piece of paper!" I got sent to the deputy's office. I had to wait an hour because he was busy talking to his wife on the phone. When I finally saw him, he looked pissed off. He yelled at me, telling me not to use such language and that I should be ashamed of myself. He called my dad and told him that I was going to be suspended for four school days. At that point, I burst out in tears and ran outside of the school grounds and into a park. Around two hours later, when I had recomposed myself, I picked up my school bag and went home. My dad was waiting for me. He yelled at me, then hit me four times with his belt. "One for each day you got suspended!" he told me. I had to go with him to his work.

My dad owns a small business repairing things. Its name was "John's Repairs". Those four days were hell. My dad made me clean his shop. Now in theory that sounds like it could be easy. Not in my dad's shop. The shop had many dangerous things in it for a ten year old. A key cutter with razor sharp blades for instance. A large needle for engraving on things and a five piece sanding belt machine. Not to mention an array of knives. My dad never told me when he was going to use one of the machines, so every time a machine started that I was cleaning, my hands would get cut or sanded. Blood would start flowing freely out of the wounds. I never cried once because if I ever cried in front of my father, he would hit me, no matter where we were. By the time the four days were finished, my hands were blistered, bloody and bruised. When I went back to school, I couldn't even hold a pen in my hand without a streak of pain going through it. I guess my dad just wanted me to be tougher. He didn't want a faggot for a son. That was one thing that was clear. That night my dad took me for a drive to Liverpool to see my grandparents. On the way he saw a man dressed as a lady on the side of the road. My dad looked at me and said "Watch this son; this is what you should do every time you see a faggot". He turned the wheel and went straight for the transvestite. We hit the man at 60km/h. My dad started laughing. We continued to my grandparents' house. When we reached there, my dad turned the ignition off and turned to face me. "Now Jeff, you do not tell anyone about what happened to that man. Do you understand?" he said with venom. I nodded too scared to say anything. We went into the house and everything happened as it should. They had dinner, and then watched the football then we went home.

That night my dad got really drunk. Around midnight, he stumbled into my room and started punching me. He head butted me, kicked me. I tried to fight back, but he was too strong. After five minutes he seemed to get sick of hitting me and stumbled back out the room and collapsed onto the couch and fell asleep. I didn't get any more sleep that night, in complete fear of my father. I contemplated calling DOC's again, but rejected the idea; because of I didn't want to be placed in a foster family again, but also because I wanted to be with the only family who would still have me. The next morning my dad woke up and left for work, not even checking in on me after his assault on me last night. I didn't go to school for the rest of the term because of the cuts and bruises on my face where my dad hit me and drew blood.

When my father left to go to work, I made my way painfully out of my small shabby room. I sat on the floor, not wanting to touch the couch that he slept on the night before. I turned on the television and started watching the news. It was about a 33 year old man who got ran over in Lallika the night before. The man had a fiancée and a new born child. Police were investigating it as a hit and run. Today was meant to be their wedding. I nearly went into shock then. It was the man my father hit in his hatred of homosexuals rage. The news reporter went on "The man, dressed as a woman by his mates at his bucks party was hit by a Red Holden Commodore. Police have no leads as of yet." I was about to call my father and tell him about it when the phone rang in my hand. It was a telemarketer. I yelled into the phone as I had seen my father do so many times and abused the Indian man on the other end. I hung up phone and tried to stand. I collapsed back down in pain.

I laid there for hours in pain. At twelve thirty my father came home and saw me lying on the floor. I didn't realise it but I was crying. My father just looked at me and said "Oh for fuck sake!" he walked over to me and picked me up. I screamed out in pain. He ignored me, and carried me out to the car. He put me in the back lying down and got into the front. Neither of us had our seatbelts on. He drove me to the hospital. He turned off the car and walked into the emergency block. Five minutes later two male nurses came rushing out with a trolley bed. My father was nowhere in sight. The two men carefully picked me up and placed me onto the bed. I was still crying and screaming out in pain. One of the nurses pulled a syringe and small vile from his pocket. He quickly measured out the amount he thought suitable and injected me with morphine. The two men pushed the cart into the emergency ward. I saw my father at a coffee machine, leaning on it with one hand above is head which was lowered in what I could only guess at being ashamed, though I don't think it was because he did it, I think it was because we were at the hospital altogether.

A young woman came around and asked my name. I could barely understand her, but I knew what she wanted. I told her my name. "Jeffrey Crows" I slurred. She then proceeded with the usual stuff a parent should tell them, but mine seemed to have vanished. I answered each answer carefully. Making sure I didn't give her the wrong information. Then she asked the question I had been dreading. "Jeffrey? What happened to you?" she asked me. I closed my eyes. I heard once that the eyes give away people who lie. "I fell out of a tree" I said. I reopened my eyes once I finished the half lie. I did fall out of a tree to begin with. "When did this happen?" the woman asked. I took a breath before answering the young doctor. "Yesterday". The doctor wrote on a piece of paper. It looked like she wrote more than "fell out of tree yesterday" so I adverted my eyes to make sure it didn't look suspicious. I started to bite my lip. I hadn't realized but the pain had subsided. Suddenly there was a large bang and I saw my father hit the coffee dispensing machine with his fist. A young man walked up to him in a white coat and put his hand on my father's shoulder. My father spun around and punched the man in the chest. The man fell to the ground with incredible speed. A security guard appeared out of nowhere and grabbed hold of my father and started to wrestle him outside of the hospital. The young doctor took all of this in. I could see that she knew the real reason why I was so bruised and sore.

"Jeff? Has your father ever hit you?" she asked suddenly. Shock shot through me. "Nnn…No" I stammered. "My father would never hit me" I added. I started staring at my toes. How could this person who doesn't even know me know that my father hit me? "You know Jeff, he can't hurt you while you're in here. You can tell me." she pleaded to me. I looked her straight in the eyes and said without flinching "My father is a great man. He would never hit me intentionally. My father loves me." The doctor studied my face. Then when she was certain she must have misread something she continued with her examination. "Jeffrey, I think your arm is broken. I would like to take an X-ray. Is that alright?" she asked. "You should ask my father for permission." I replied. My father always told me that if someone ever says something that relates to my health, I should always ask him. I never knew why he said that; maybe he was just covering himself. The woman nodded and started to walk away when she turned to me again. "Jeff? Why do you call him Father instead of Dad?" I didn't know how to reply to such a question as this, so I just looked at her. After a few more seconds she breathed deeply and walked outside to ask for my fathers permission for the X-ray.

Two hours later I was in X-ray. My father still hadn't seen me, but at least he did give permission for it, even if it was a "Whatever!". The receptionist man finally called my name and I went into the machine room area. The X-ray lady was a short Asian lady. I could barely understand her. She placed foam shapes around and under my arm. A bright light flashed in the room and then I got rolled out from under the machine and I went back to Emergency. Three hours of waiting isn't very fun. It is extremely boring. The only highlight was when a very hot young man came around every hour to check on my temperature and blood pressure. I think he was gay like me, but I wasn't entirely certain. The young woman doctor came back over with a large envelop holding my X-ray's. She didn't speak as she pulled out a large black sheet. She flipped a switch and placed the X-ray onto a board where the light was illuminating. She pointed to a piece of my arm which had a small fragment chipped off and a small crack. "You have fractured your arm Jeff." she said. "You'll need to have a plaster on it for the next six or so weeks while it mends" she added.

My father walked into the ward again as the doctor left. He stomped straight up to me and demanded to know what happened. I told him that I fractured my left arm. He swore. An old lady who was walking past gave him a filthy look and continued walking past us. "And how did you do this?' he asked. It was a challenge. Did I tell them the truth or a lie? "I fell out of the tree out the front" I replied. He nodded as if it was a suitable answer. The lady doctor came back with some bandages and a clay like substance. She wrapped my arm with the bandages then coated it in the liquid plaster. I wasn't allowed to move my arm until it set. You know when adults tell you not do something, you just have to do it. Either that or when someone says don't move, you immediately start to move. That happened to me. I couldn't stop moving my arm. It was so damn itchy.

The hot guy came back around to check on me again. With my dad around, I couldn't show any interest in him like I did before. When he asked me "So how are you feeling at the moment?" I just looked at him like it was a stupid question. I think he got the message that I couldn't speak like how I was before when my father wasn't there. After another half an hour, I was finally allowed to go home. The morphine still hadn't worn off completely so I couldn't walk properly, so a nurse gave me a wheelchair to go to the car. I heaved myself into the car with the nurse's help. My father just pushed the wheelchair out of the way and got into the driver's seat and started the engine. He drove us back home. When we got home there was a message on the answering machine. I pressed play as I leaned against phone table. Instantly music started playing in the background of the message. "You dirty fucking cunt! How dare you hurt our son! You're a low son of a bitch!" The message ended and my father took it upon himself and picked up the answering machine and threw it at a wall. I made it to my room staggering and leaning upon the wall. I fell on my bed. I hit my plastered arm on the floor. Pain shot through my arm again. I was about to cry out when I held my breath. My father was just outside my door. I closed my eyes and let out the breath. He stood there observing me. After a few minutes he left my doorway and I heard him turn on the TV in the lounge room. Soon after I fell asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 4 - Everything is much easier with two hands

A week into the school holidays, I remember my father waking me up at the crack of dawn. It was a Sunday. Sunday was always the worst day of the week. Most children will say Sunday was their favorite day. Not me. I hated the day so much. Sunday was my fathers day off from work. And every week we would do yard work. This week it was out the back. I still had my plaster on so it would be even worse. Luckily I was right handed, so it wouldn't be that much of an inconvenience. My father walked into my room with a bucket of cold water. He threw it at me while I was sleeping. When the freezing water hit me, I instantly awoke, leaping upwards. "Time for work!" he said to me. I got dressed in my old working clothes. We had assigned duties at my house. I had pulling out the weeds. Now that doesn't sound so bad, but it was. With my plaster, it was difficult to balance on the balls of my feet when I crouched down to pull out the weed. I would constantly fall over onto my back, then painfully get back up and the cycle would repeat itself. My father would be mowing the grass, painting something, or just fixing something that was broken or needed replacing that he didn't want to replace.

Later that day when we had finished doing the yard work, I remember my father telling me something interesting. "There are no such things as disabilities. There are lifestyle choices that lead to consequences and there are things you must learn to live with. Those who call themselves disabled are only weak minded." He told me this as he laid down on the couch. I neatly lowered myself into a cross legged sitting position on the floor. We watched television for a while before he heaved himself off the couch to get a beer, then flopped back down onto the couch. I was surprised that he didn't ask me to get it for him. But maybe it just didn't cross his mind. As usual the cricket was playing. I never did like watching cricket. It was extremely boring, but I stayed there. Just being in his company I thought maybe I would grow tougher somehow. Maybe subconsciously. My father was a well built man. He was 120kg, 5ft 10 man with balding grey hair. He had massive arms that would easily crush me in a bear hug. If he ever did hug me which was rare.

When it was shower time, I had to place a plastic bag over my cast to protect it from any more water damage (the water my father threw at me in the morning). My father got a stick from the back yard and wrapped a wash clothe over it. He thrust it to me when I first got my cast and said "Wash!" to me. It was the only thing I could use to wash my back. I didn't say thank you to him. Saying thank you was most likely a sign of weakness as well as the many other things he considered to be classified as weak. If I took more than three minutes in the shower, my father would start hammering on the door yelling "We don't own the Water Board! Get the fuck out!". When I first heard him say this, I thought he could be an environmentalist, but the idea soon dissolved as I caught him littering a few days later.

I always thought my father knew I was gay. Maybe all the harshness was punishment for what I was, or really I am. I knew somewhere deep down he loved me, because why else would he kidnap me from the foster family? My father was a very confusing man. If you have never heard of Jinjiikka before, you should know a few things about it. First, it has a high crime rate. Second, we celebrate a guy called Henry Hallows, who was murdered. Third, it had a large housing commission community, which in turn usually meant that it had a lot of feral people around yelling at others or just abusing/threatening the general public. Our schools had a very low attendance rate and academic level. We had high unemployment level. So we were pretty much a shit community. I learnt to manipulate people's minds easily to either piss them off, or for them to start abusing other people and then making my escape before they could accuse me of anything else.

The next week passed uneventfully. My father did nothing to hurt me, or shown any love towards me, as per usual. School resumed for term two. I fell back into a pattern. School, homework, dinner than sleep. I always had to cook dinner because of the time my father got home from work. When at school, I found it difficult to play sports, not that I actually liked to play it. I was always cast out as far as possible. I remember Greg telling me to start playing a game to see how observant the teacher was. Every time someone did something stupid, which was nearly every minute, you take one step back. I once got nearly onto the road before the teacher realized I wasn't at my crappy position and yelled at me. From then on, the teacher started paying more attention towards whether I was moving away from the class or not. Since I just came off a suspension, I was placed on a monitoring booklet. It was this kind of booklet that had a set of rules that I had to follow, and my behavior and academic levels would be graded from A to D. Most classes I got C's. I was an average student.

I could write normally, but I always had my head leaning against my cast, so whenever I lifted my head, I had to brush off little bits of white plaster off my head. My music teacher didn't give me any grief over calling her a bitch, but she seemed more displaced and distant towards me. She did however yell at the entire class when we were mucking up and then stormed out of the room to cry. I remember her exact words. "You guys make me fucking sick!" I never actually realized that we were such a horrible class until then. But now that I look back on it, we were kind of crazy. Like when Luke threw a chair at another kid, or when Adam threw Kevin over two desks. Greg's class was the top class. They were nearly as bad as we were. But they all somehow got 70% or above. When the half yearly tests came around, I knew I was going to fail all my exams. I had missed out on nearly seven weeks of school I knew I didn't stand a chance in my exams.

When we got our results back I was totally dumbfounded. I topped the class in two subjects, getting 82% in science and 75% in English. Both my teachers asked me if I cheated in the exams. But I think they knew I didn't cheat when I got my results back because of the surprised look on my face. That was the first time I actually realized that I had an excellent memory. That I just absorbed information without realizing it, like a sponge. Just after the exams finished, I got suspended for a second time. This time was for lifting a kid up by his hair and punching him in the face during science (it's harder than it sound with a cast on still). He was throwing dusters at me and the teacher was ignoring it, so I took matters into my own hands.

The deputy principles office was exactly how I saw it before. He was even wearing the exact same clothes, which I found a little disgusting. He couldn't get a hold of my father on his work phone, so he rang our home phone. It went straight to message bank. He said I was getting suspended for three days this time. I didn't burst our crying again because I thought my cast might get damaged so I picked up the yellow envelope that had the documentation of my suspension and left school. I ran home. I could feel the sweat underneath my cast wetting the plaster and making it become soggy, but I didn't care. When I got home, my father's car wasn't parked there. I was so happy. I went inside the house and deleted the message from the phone. My father never knew that I got suspended that time. I just stayed at home, lying to him when he would go to work and ask why I was still at home. "I have a free period at school first period so I don't have to go in till later" I said. He accepted the answer, but I think he knew I was lying. I think he trusted me enough, but I wasn't too sure.

On the third day of my suspension, I went to the doctors. They took an x-ray of my arm again. The doctor, a male this time in his early fifties came in and told me my arm had fully healed and that I could get my cast taken off. I was so happy that I could use both my arm and hand again. I nearly fainted when I sat down on the chair and he brought out a large grinder. The grinder went through the plaster like a knife through hot butter (God, did I actually just write that? What a cliché!). His workmanship skills were excellent. I didn't once get cut by the grinder. When he pulled off the cast, my arm was pure white and hairy. I gasped and tried to brush off the whiteness with my other hand. The doctor looked at me and asked "What are you doing?" I looked at him with a stupid face and said "Trying to get the white stuff off my arm" he laughed at me. I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks as I flushed. "Your skin pigmentation changed because it wasn't exposed to sunlight. It will be back to normal in a couple of days."

When I got back home I shaved my arms. Both so the other wouldn't look stupid and they would grow back evenly. I cut myself quite a lot when shaving but I didn't really care. My father got home at 5:30pm. I lifted up my arm to show him the plaster had been removed. He just grunted in acknowledgement and went to the fridge to get a beer. When I went for a shower that night, I scrubbed my arms till they were red raw. When I finished in the shower, I made my way to my room, when my father stopped me. "Jeff? What the fuck did you do to your arms?" he asked me, well it more like a yell but it was still a question. "I cleaned where my cast was to get all the dirt that had seeped under it, then I guess I just did the same thing on my other arm." I said blankly. My father just gazed at me in wonder. He pushed me aside and went back to the living room to watch television. "And don't forgot to cook dinner!" he yelled. Same as always my father was.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter four - Ramming old hags should be an Olympic sport

As the year progressed, I grew depressed (Gah! I'm rhyming!). Demons would haunt my thoughts, terrorizing me into a paranoid state. I don't think anybody actually realized this, not even Greg. The world started slowly to be cut off from me. I knew I was becoming more like my father every day. My father was extremely anti-social. He hated going shopping, so he usually just wrote a list and gave me money. I usually caught a taxi home, much to his racist displeasure for most of the taxi drivers were Indian. The only thing he ever went and bought himself was his beer for I was obviously too young.

On this particular day, which was a Sunday, he gave me three hundred dollars. I looked at him quizzically. "Go buy a computer" was all he said. I don't really know why he decided to buy a computer purely because of his anti-social behavior, but I went out anyway. I found an old 98 computer from a pawn dealer in the town's CBD. The computer itself only got eighty dollars, while the monitor was thirty. With the some of the money left over, I bought some floppy discs from them as well. I nearly walked out of the store without buying a mouse, a pad and a keyboard. I walked back into the shop, pushing the trolley with my "new" computer in it. I asked the shop assistant about them. He said he didn't have any, and that my best bet was too go to Kmart or Target in the Mall. When I walked into the Mall, it was packed. I had to keep moving the trolley out of the way on incoming pedestrians.

Kmart was the same. I got the shits with this old lady who was walking extremely slowly in my thinking just to piss me off. I rammed her with the trolley and she fell over. I stormed past her pushing the trolley. The old woman started screaming at me, calling me a "retarded idiot" and that my "kind should be shot when we were born" I ignored the old lady's rant and moved toward the technology section. I found the prices over the top, well for my budget, but I still bought the items I required. When I was making my way back to the register, I saw the old lady was talking to two security guards. I swore. I didn't usually swear, because whenever I did, my father hit me if he ever heard. I heard the lady telling the officers my description, when I heard her say "He was pushing around this shit computer around in a trolley" I lost my temper when she said this. I pushed the trolley right up to her and started to yell at her "This is NOT a shit computer you stupid old hag! What would you know about computers! You're fucking ancient!" One of the officers grabbed hold of my arm, and asked the old hag whether I was the person who hit her. She said I was. The officer pulled me, with me still holding onto my trolley out of Kmart. For some reason the alarm barriers didn't go off when the unpaid items went through them. They dragged me into the Mall's head security office. They started yelling at me. Every adult must think that yelling at a kid actually works. It doesn't. Sitting them down and telling them what they did while having an atmosphere of guilt hovering in the air works much better. There was this teacher at school who had it perfected and I really disliked him. I ignored the guards. They called the police on me.

When the police finally came even though their station was only around a five minute walk from the Mall, they started to tell me the seriousness of the actions I did. The old lady didn't want to press charges for some reason, which was lucky on my part I guess. The police asked my home number. I gave it to them unwillingly. My father wasn't drunk enough yet to forget how to pick up the phone, so he picked it up (obviously). I started shaking in complete fear. When my father found the security officers main office, he talked to the police officers for a bit, then grabbed my arm and pushed the trolley out of the office. I could see the annoyed look on his face. I walked to the car in a daze. When we got to the car, I could see nobody in my range of vision. And I think it was the same case for my father. I unloaded the computer into the boot of our car and started to pull the boot door close when my father grabbed my arm again. He spun me around and kneed me in the stomach. It was so forceful that I hit my head on the boot door as it sprung back upwards. I fell to the ground in pain. My father closed the boot door himself and started kicking me out of the way. Each kick was extremely painful. I was on the verge of tears, when he stopped kicking me. He got into the car and ignited the ignition. He reversed out of the car space and drove away from me. I started crying for around ten minutes before the pain had started to subside. I got up and started making my way home.

Just as I walked past the football fields, it started to rain on me. I didn't have an umbrella, so I was forced to walk home in the rain. I knew that if I waited for the storm to pass, which would be a while, I wouldn't have sufficient time to make my father his dinner, which would mean another beating. The rain cleaned the now seeping wound on my head. It took me nearly an hour to walk home because of my stomach hurting so badly. When I finally did get home, my father, as per usual was on the couch drinking. He didn't say anything when I walked past the living room into the bathroom, were I stripped down and inspected my new wounds. The gash on my head was deep and it looked like it would need stitches. My stomach was completely covered in bruises, one I could even see my father's boot imprint in my skin. I had a shower and got dressed. I walked (well it was really a limp) into the kitchen and started to make dinner, something simple; Chicken and chips. I was halfway through deep frying the chips when I suddenly felt dizzy. I don't remember anything from that moment except for the crashing of the deep fryer on the floor.

I woke up in hospital the next day. My head was stitched up and my stomach was covered in bandages. A male nurse came around soon after and started to examine my body's functions. Are my public dilated and etc. He was in his mid-thirties and going bald. My father, to my surprise was asleep next to me in an arm chair. I don't know why I didn't see him before this, maybe I just wasn't looking. I watched his chest rise and fall with the pattern of his breathing. The doctor said I had extensive burns to my chest from the hot oil and that they had to cut open the nerves for the skin to heal. I nearly fainted there and then. Doctors seem to have that effect on me I guess. I believe the burns camouflaged the bruises my father gave me yesterday, and I guess I just must have hit my head again because he didn't say anything about it. I asked the doctor what the time was and he said it was near 11:30am. He also said that my father was up most of the night completely stressing about me and that he only fell asleep a few hours ago. It surprised me that my father stayed up worrying about me. Maybe he was just annoyed that he might have to start cooking his own meals. Or maybe, just maybe, he does love me.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 - Hospital is actually a filthy place

With it being the second time I was in hospital within such a short period of time, of course DOC's was called. The doctor's and nurse's believed my father hit me. It was the truth, but they didn't have to know that. I lied through my teeth, which is harder than it sounds being hooked up to a blood pressure machine. But without evidence of my father hurting me, they couldn't do anything. They came and went within an hour, while my father was at work unsurprisingly. I didn't tell him that DOC's visited me; it would most likely infuriate him. He came and visited me every day after he finished work. He wouldn't stay for long, just usually five minutes but to me it was longer. He wouldn't say anything when he visited, he would just sit there and stare at me. I think he was in denial about hitting me, either that or he was thinking how long it would be until he could make me come home and start helping him with the work load.

When I was in hospital, I had an entire room to myself for some reason. Jinjiikka Hospital, as well as many other Australian hospitals was known to have not enough beds for patients. But I wasn't complaining. At 6pm every day, I had dinner. It was nowhere near the quality of my cooking if I say so myself. When I finished my "meal" if that's what you could call it, I usually started watching television. At 9pm nearly every night, the young nurse from the emergency ward would come round to see me. I don't exactly know how he found out I was in, maybe he saw me when I was unconscious back in the Emergency ward. He wouldn't stay for long but there was always tension in the air when he came. He would ask the same questions every time he came to see me.

"So, how are you feeling today Jeff?" he would ask. I always had the same reply. "I'm fine, I could be better I guess" I would say back to him. "You're always "just fine" Jeff" he would reply. "Well maybe I'm just a fine kind of guy" I would counter. Every time I would say this, it made him smile. From then on, I knew he was gay. And I knew another thing, I knew he liked me. He would tell me about his day at work, then leave to go home or where ever he went. I was pretty lonely in the hospital ward, but it didn't really bother me. None of my friends came to visit, most likely because my father didn't tell them I was in hospital, but I didn't care.

Nearing the second week of my stay in hospital, my father didn't show up after work one day. I didn't think anything of it, purely because it was meant to be shopping night, when we would go shopping, (or rather I would go shopping and he would pick me up). I guess he had to start shopping to feed himself; after all he was a kind of glutton. It was nearing 9pm when the young nurse came around again. I found out his name was Jeremy. I never really realized but he was actually quite tall, most likely because I was in a bed and he was sitting down nearly every time I saw him. His blonde hair would be in a complete mess by the time I saw him. His eyes were blue, more like the ocean than the sky. The reason I realized his height was because he didn't sit down when he entered my room this time.

I sat up a little with a little discomfort, but I didn't really care. "Why, are you going to sit down Jeremy?" I asked him mockingly in a British accent. He looked at me with an expression that I couldn't quite place. I looked over him and noticed something in his pants was making a odd looking shape. "Hey, what's in your pants?" He looked down and noticed the shape that I was staring at. He walked over to me and started to take the bed sheets off me. I couldn't quite place exactly what he was doing at the time. "Hey! Don't do that, I'm half naked down there! I can't stand up!" I think he knew that but I don't think he was listening. He continued to pull the covers off, when I grabbed them and yanked them out of his hand. I started to pull them back over me, when Jeremy grabbed hold of the bed sheet underneath me and lifted it. I rolled out of the bed and fell to the floor. I was naked from the waist down. "Hey! What the hell did you do that for!" I yelled at him. He grabbed the pillow from my bed and walked around the bed to stand over me.

I was lying on my stomach, when he pulled his dick out of his pants. I knew then what he intended to do. I started to yell for help, but that was quickly taken care of when he smashed the pillow onto my face. I kept screaming into the pillow but it was being muffled out. He started to spit in his erected penis to lubricate it, when the door to my room opened. I never saw Jeremy shut it, so I don't know how they could open an already opened door, but I was relieved to see who it was. My father walked into the room. He saw Jeremy with his exposed genitals and me on the floor half naked with a pillow in my face. "What the fuck do you think you're doing to my son!" my father yelled. He ran towards Jeremy, (if that's possible because he only had to take two or so steps) and grabbed his arm and threw him off of me. I pulled the pillow away from my face and started to crawl underneath the bed. Jeremy tried to pull his pants up and run, but my father was much too fast for him. He punched Jeremy in the stomach. Then when he doubled over, he kneed him in the face, breaking his nose cleanly. Jeremy fell backwards onto the floor crying. My father started to kick him in the stomach when another two nurses appears and wrestled him away from the young nurse.

My father, while he was being dragged out started screaming at Jeremy who was still crying "If you EVER touch my son again you filthy faggot! I WILL KILL YOU!" Nether the less, the nurses started tugging my father even harder to get him away from Jeremy's body. I was still underneath the bed when a nurse came back for me. He put boxers on me, then lifted me up and carried me back outside into an oncoming wheelchair pushed by my father. My father it seemed had "persuaded" the nurses to let me go home early. He stomped his way out of the hospital, pushing me ahead of him, while he muttered "Dirty filth faggot…Thinks he can touch my son…I'll kill that fucking faggot" I never realized how limited my father's vocabulary was until that moment. I had never heard him call someone who was gay actually gay, but rather only a "faggot". He pushed me out of the hospital and to the car, when he lifted me into his arms and gently placed me in the back of the car. He picked up the wheel chair and threw it with surprising strength, and we both watched it as it sore through the air and crash to the ground. It started to roll towards the doors when it bounced upwards and went through the glass, completely shattering it. My father got into his seat and started the engine. We drove out of the parking lot, well it was more like speeding than driving.

When we got home a few minutes later, the first thing I noticed was that everything was extremely clean. I didn't want to actually touch anything, well not that I could with my father carrying me to my room in his arms. He lightly placed me on my bed than pulled up a freshly washed quilt. Even after so much excitement, if you could call it that, I fell asleep almost immediately. But just before I fell asleep I saw my father's face. It was covered in tears.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6 - My father becomes spiritual, sort of

Neither me nor my father spoke of that incident at the hospital ever. He never asked me if I was ok or anything. I guess he was pretending it never happened. After a couple of weeks I found I could start walking again. I didn't go to school. The school sent out the work to me by mail. I didn't do it till late in the day. My father would come home every day after work and cook dinner. I never knew he could actually cook. It quite surprised me at first, until I realized by the third day he could only cook two things: bacon and eggs; and chicken and chips. I grew slightly overweight before heading back to school. It was term four, the final race to the finish. This meant exams. Oh the joy!

Needless to say I failed all my exams. I didn't really care until I found out that I was being dropped down a class for the next year. My year advisor was this guy in his twenties and I must admit he was kind of hot. His name was Mr. Bosanko. After our first year he told the year that he was leaving. What he neglected to tell us was that he was going out with another teacher who was married and that they were running away to start a new life. But we all found out. Our new advisor was a hippy vegetarian lady from the art block. I personally hated her.

The school year finished on a low (like usual) with us all dispersing to do out things for Christmas. I despised Christmas. It is a waste of time if you ask me. As well as Jesus was born in late spring or so, not summer (in Australia). My father always celebrated Christmas at his parent's house with my aunty and cousins. I disliked my cousins, they all seemed to be pretty happy people and they could joke about each other and they would never get offended. I never realized until my cousin Chris pointed it out but I "bob" when I walk. So after that I was officially dubbed "Bob" and not Jeffrey. I grew angry whenever they called me Bob. I once hit Chris and tackled him when he was on the chair. The chair toppled and I got yelled at by my father.

My father was a Christian, even though he swore, drunk and abused others around him. That hypocrisy would always make me smile. I never heard my father say "Merry Christmas" to me, so I never said it to him. He was too solitary for such non-sense as he would say. I've always wondered whether he had some kind of mental disability or something, but I never asked him for he would most likely hit me. If you're reading this you're most likely thinking what a cunt my father is. But truly his isn't. I guess it was just how he was brought up that made him the man the he is today. I don't really know if you want the truth. I've always wondered what it would be like to be in his shoes, looking through the distasteful world as he sees it. It would be weird yes, but an experience I would like to have just to feel closer to him.

On Boxing day, my father woke me up at the crack of dawn and said to me "Get in your good clothes". To this day I don't know what he meant by that because all my clothes were in a bad state. So I just chose the clothes that had the least stains and holes in them. He drove the two of us to our local church. I looked at him quizzically when he stopped the engine. He got out of the car and said "Are you gonna get out or what dickhead?" I unbuckled myself and got out of the car. He slammed his door shut and started walking towards the church. Just before the church doors there is an alcove. My father steered me toward the alcove and sat me down on the bench. He sat down next to me and said "Son this is the closest I ever want you to get to a church besides when you get married. They are full of stupid people who believe in a fantasy world where an almighty bloke is controlling everyone's decisions". I had to hold myself from laughing. This was coming from someone who was catholic. The irony of that sentence was off the charts. My father grabbed my shoulder and brought his face down to my level (if that is really possible with us sitting down, but my father always seems to be able to do the impossible if it suites him) "Promise me son. Promise me or I will break your jaw" he said. I obviously agreed to his promise. He stood up and started to walk back to the car. He turned around. "Hurry the fuck up son!" he yelled.

Irony sometimes pop's up the most strangest of places. Like the work place for example. For the past few years, the shop next to my dad's was empty. On the 28th of December a man moved into the shop next to his and turned it into a hair salon. He was obviously gay, but for some reason I never did like him. His name was Wilson, or just Will for short. I could see the hatred in my father's eyes when he first laid eyes on Will. A gay man working next to a homophobe.

Life is sometimes upfront and abrasive, but other times it can be sublime, beautiful in such a way. Life it seems to be upfront and abrasive at most times for me. I don't know what I did to deserve such a thing. For Christmas time, it doesn't seem to very joyful this year.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7 - reflections are never true portrays of one's self

Ever since I was a young boy, I wonder whether I truly belonged in this world; if my life is worth living. Scientists repeatedly told us that we are destroying the world, slowly eradicating species off the planet like a checklist, one by one. Sometimes I really don't see how humans can be worth this paradise we call Earth. We are just pawns in an ever-growing losing game of chess. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother.

I am standing in the bathroom on New Year's Eve, staring at the shapeless blob in the mirror, imitating my movements. Breathing upon the glass with heated breathe, crystallising the glass with frost crystals, searching upon the hideous face for the imperfections that lay upon it. The reflection pointing and laughing upon the thing I have to look out into the weird world, that I call my life; just proving my point about the world. Is insanity drawing ever closer? Is the reflection actually doing that or is it me? Maybe I need to see a doctor about mental health issues.

I can hear my father yelling at the television, already drunk and making a nuisance of himself. Thankfully he is at home and not out in public. I have always wondered if I was adopted. I can't see resemblance between us, even though many customers at his shop say we do. I hear an empty bottle fall to the ground and shatter. Great. More mess to clean up. I have never seen the big deal with New Year's Eve. The clock is just ticking like it always has, but nobody cheers because we made it through another minute: unless it's a mental patient with OCD or a family in the company of someone dying. So many depressing thoughts running through my mind at once. Maybe that's it. I have a mild level of depression or something. I wish I knew.

"Jeff! Geettt youuur arse out heeerre." My father slurred at me. I sigh at my misfortune. I know what is going to happen next. I drag my feet across the floorboards, making them black with soot from the unclean floors. My father is lying across the couch with one hand on his crotch while the other is holding what remains of the shattered beer bottle head. "Come 'ere" and lifts up his hand and motions toward me with his finger. I walk towards him. He grabs my arm and yanks me down. "Sit!" he says groggily. I slam onto the shards of glass from the beer bottle, but I dare not get up; even when he is drunk, my father is extremely strong.

"Son! Why you so wimpy?" he asks me. His head slightly droops onto his bare chest. "I don't know sir." I reply. His body slightly jerks and he looks down at me. "It's 'cause you're a …" and he suddenly fell asleep. His hand slackened and I was able to wiggle my arm out of his grip. I walk back into the bathroom carefully and pull down my boxers and, with tweezers carefully remove the glass that is imbedded into my skin. Tears streamed down my face, now that I knew my father was asleep. Blood trickles out of the wounds as I place Band-Aids on them. What a way to end a year. Next year better be fucking better than this one.


End file.
